Snow Drifting

Omaha got it's first accumulation of snow on Friday evening into Saturday morning. The precipitation started out as rain for most of Friday before switching over to some freezing rain and then eventually snow. This seems to be how our snow has gone for us over the last 2-3 winters which makes for really slick roads and other surfaces where the rain freezes before being covered by snow. This is especially true when the snow/rain occurs heading into the weekend when crews are less likely to work all night and early mornings and instead seem to rely more on the sun and traffic to take care of clearing the snow off of the main roads. Not wanting to skate down to Lincoln this meant no formal ride for me on Saturday. Instead of the normal ride I scooped the drive at hyper speed and then headed out on the fat bike from the front door. What a novel concept that is. 





Since it was a wet and heavy snow with the temps hovering  barely below or at freezing I decided to wander around the neighborhood to test things out to make sure it was going to be rideable. Once it was determined that the snow was suitable for riding, albeit difficult riding, I high tailed it over to the local single track trails and rode around in there for about an hour. Didn't get in a ton of miles but when you're breaking trail in 3-4" of fresh, wet snow those miles feel like three times the distance they end up being and the legs were throwing in the towel after an hour and a half.






Sunday was another stellar day for riding in the snow and I was able to round up a few friends to join us in Pioneers Park where we rode last years Fat Bike Frozen Ididaride course or as much of it as we could find. GPS kept wanting to route us into deep brush and trees, dang technology any way. Sledding was in full swing on the hills in Pioneers Park also, best to avoid getting too close or risk getting taken out by a 8 year old on a toboggan.








We ended up laying down fresh tracks here also but it was a lot easier being able to share the time out front, ain't no shame is sucking a wheel in several inches of snow from time to time. Managed to get in a couple of hours of riding and even got to get in part of a second lap to enjoy the trail we had worn in on the first lap before the sun started going down on a perfect weekend of fat biking. The weather forecast seems to change almost daily but right now it looks like the snow might stick around for several days now, only issue is going to be that there are a few days that get near or above freezing add some sun to that and it tends to turn the track into ice when it goes back down below freezing. Maybe there will be a nice layer of fresh snow coming our way to negate that little problem. Hope everyone was able to get out and enjoy the snow, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but as the saying goes "If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow."